SICK LMS 291 LabView LIDAR Driver

Hello! As you probably know, I worked on sensors for DEXTER in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The first software I worked on was a LabView driver for the LMS 291 LIDAR laser scanner along with Amaury Rolin. We cleaned up and submitted our driver to National Instruments, and you can now download it from the NI Developer Zone. Hopefully this program will be useful to others! Good luck! :)

Open Source IEEE Bibliography XSL Style Sheet for Word 2007 Available

Thanks to everyone who downloaded, commented upon, and helped improve my IEEE style sheet for Office 2007! Reader Wesley Allen has pointed out that there is a free, more fully-featured, open-source IEEE style sheet available on CodePlex. It supports more reference formats than my version and seems to be getting feature improvements. Please go check it out, and thanks for all your support and comments.

Update: Good news! Office 2007 SP3 now includes an IEEE XSL style sheet built-in! You can download Office 2007 SP3 here or use Windows update, and read the Office 2007 release notes here. Thanks to all of you who downloaded my version over the past few years, it's been fun!

Missing Money - Unclaimed Funds

Do yourself a favor and search for your name (and friends and relatives) here on Missing Money and directly with your state from a link on unclaimed.org. Apparently state governments can capture funds from "inactive" accounts through a process called escheatment. I heard about this from my bank, ING Direct (highly recommended, btw). Your grandparents will thank you when you find that long-lost bank account money for them.

Team Case on Robocars

Tonight is the big night for Team Case on The Science Channel. Episode 2 of Robocars is tonight and Case is one of the featured teams. I should have a bit of airtime too! I'll be watching it with Scott in Baltimore and many Case folks will be gathered at Johnny Malloy's in Coventry for a Case Alumni Association sponsored event. So, if you have digital cable, tune it to the Science Channel tonight at 10 PM. See you there!

Scott and Erin's Wedding

Hello, faithful readers! I just got back to Cleveland from Scott and Erin's wedding in Cincy. I was a groomsman and had a great time! I also got to help Nick write his best man's speech, which was a lot of fun. Nick delivered it brilliantly... if he doesn't make it as a MD-PhD, BME, or artist... maybe he can be a stand-up comic.

I also got a chance to put my new Canon EOS 40D digital SLR with 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM lens to the test. I took about half as many pictures as the professional photographer (who had a Nikon 200D with various lenses and a nice external flash). The image stabilization in my lens helped me get a lot of non-blurry shots inside that would have otherwise been hard to get. It's clear to me that the next accessory I should get is an external flash. The built-in flash in my camera has a slow recycle rate and casts unnatural shadows behind the subjects. I did manage to get some great photos, though! You can click on any of them to view them in full (printable) resolution. I haven't done any post processing on them, so feel free to touch them up if you're interested.

Here is Scott and Erin's first dance as husband and wife:

All the bridesmaids wanted a piece of the action:

Erin was the center of attention and looked beautiful in her wedding dress:

And here's a picture of me in my tux:


I'll be posting a lot more pictures to my Facebook, so feel free to add me. Bye for now!

Research Showcase 2008 - Grand Prize!

Howdy folks! Yesterday was the 2008 Research Showcase at Case Western Reserve University. I presented a poster on my M.S. research topic, Wireless Implantable EMG Sensing Microsystem. Out of about 600 posters from across the university, I was one of 10 grand prize winners, which includes a cash stipend for me and some additional funding to support my research. Next stop, graduation (hopefully)!

Quicksilver.

I've been using LaunchBar on my Macs for a long time now... maybe 5 years. I've always heard rumblings about that other keyboard shortcut program, Quicksilver. Well, a CIM Mac-using student came in to tech support on Saturday with his Mac tricked out with QS. I installed it today, and it is totally sweet. Especially by turning on "proxy actions," enabling access for assistive devices in the Universal Access control panel, and creating a short "trigger," I now have a keystroke (option-space) that gives me keyboard access to all the menu items of the application in focus.

For example. I'm in Safari and I want to open the downloads window. I don't remember the keystroke (it's cmd-opt-L, by the way). So, I hit opt-space, do, enter and viola! The downloads window appears. I also have access to all my bookmarks since they are in the bookmarks menu.

This is so cool. If you have a Mac and want to speed up your computer usage and/or reduce your mousing time, try this out!

Uploading some DEXTER Videos

More to come soon! Here are some DEXTER videos that I uploaded to YouTube.

IEEE Bibliography XSL Style Sheet for Word 2007

Please read the updates at the end of this post!

I spent about 4-5 hours this afternoon making an IEEE style bibliography XML / XSL file for Office 2007 for my thesis. That means you can use Word's built in reference tracker and IEEE style references! It looks good for journal and book references but I haven't tried anything else yet. I built it by modifying Word's built-in ISO 690 Numerical format. Also, don't blame me if it shreds your thesis... make a backup first! :)

Just unpack this file to:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Bibliography\Style\

Here are the references I used to get started:
Bibliography & Citations 1011
Word 2007 citations, should be simple, but... (solved)

If you have any interest in refining this further, or if you find any bugs / inconsistencies / areas for improvement, please let me know (or even better, fix it and send me the updated version).

Enjoy!

Update: There is another IEEE style sheet available on CodePlex from another developer with some additional formatting support. Good luck!

Update 2: Good news! Office 2007 SP3 now includes an IEEE XSL style sheet built-in! You can download Office 2007 SP3 here or use Windows update, and read the Office 2007 release notes here. Thanks to all of you who downloaded my version over the past few years, it's been fun!

Caption this photo...

If you're in Ohio or Texas, remember to vote March 4th!

New DARPA Arm Video

Howdy folks! I have more than a passing interest in the DARPA arm project since it's related to my research. DEKA Research (Dean Kamen's company) is one of the primary developers. They just posted a new video, so check it out! They are using a combination of myoelectric (EMG) control from residual limb and other sites, plus tactile inputs from toes and wherever they can get a signal, really. Luke Skywalker, watch out!

Kubuntu on SPARC II

Well, I got Ubuntu installed on my Ultra 5! I had some confusion at first about why I didn't have a desktop environment, as I had selected the "SPARC-Desktop" download ISO. Of course, after some head scratching, I realized that whether you choose "Desktop" or "Server" for SPARC, you get the server ISO (I couldn't find a SPARC desktop ISO). So, this gave me a choice... Gnome (standard Ubuntu) or KDE (Kubuntu)? I've used both in the past and somewhat preferred KDE. So, I ran sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop, worked on something else for an hour, and viola! Desktop Linux on my old Sun. Woot!

Linux fun

I'm feeling a bit masochistic today, so I thought I'd have a second go with Linux.  My first experience was a dual-boot of Debian on my Athlon XP 2 GHz machine at home a few years ago.  I had some help getting it started but I had some issues getting it to talk to my Apple Cinema Display at 1920 x 1200 and I never got sound or 3D graphics working properly (my help bailed on me once I got it booting to the desktop -- "check the forums!").  So, I just use XP on that machine these days.

I also have this Sun Ultra 5 workstation (400 MHz 64-bit UltraSPARC with 128 MB RAM) that I got for free with Solaris installed... and I don't think it's worth my time to learn Solaris (ugh).  Since I have some famailarity with Debian, and I've heard good things about Ubuntu playing nicely with Sun machines, I figured I'd give that a shot. Right now, I'm in the middle of the install process and it seems to be going pretty smoothly. Wish me luck!

2007 Books in Review

Howdy all! I thought there might be some interest in seeing the books I read this year. So! Here's the list and my brief comments.


William Gibson - Neuromancer

My first exposure to the cyberpunk genre was Stephenson's Snow Crash (thanks Jessica!) and The Diamond Age.  I really enjoyed Neuromancer, especially considering it's as old as I am (published in 1984), and some of its predictions were pretty close to the mark.  (4/5)

George Orwell - Animal Farm

I didn't get to read this one in high school, and I'm glad I picked it up.  Definitely a reminder of the dangers of those who would deny our freedoms.  (4.5/5)

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five

Kara suggested I check out Vonnegut.  This was a great read and was a cross between science fiction and satire with an anti-war theme.  Definitely check it out.  (4.5/5)

Dan Simmons - Hyperion

Several travelers seemingly independent stories about the mysterious Shrike of Hyperion come together to form a well-woven SF tale.  The only downside is there's no ending... so it's really (secretly) part 1 of 2!  But, I'm sufficiently hooked that I'll be picking up The Fall of Hyperion to finish the story.  (3.5/5)

Issac Isamov - I, Robot

A novel by the SF master, I, Robot shares some themes with the recent movie, but it's really a different story.  It's really a collection of short stories that share a moral theme of the three laws of robotics.  Definitely a classic.  (4.5/5)

Orson Scott Card - Shadow of the Giant

A story about Bean and his adventures as the Hegemon of Earth.  If you've read all the Ender series books up to this one, go ahead and read it.  It does advance the Earth-bound plot (and Card's political views) while being a fun read.  But it's nothing compared to Ender of Speaker for the Dead.  (3/5)

China Mieville - Perdido Street Station

Erin suggested this "steampunk" novel and I'm glad she introduced me to the genre!  Mieville reminds me a lot of Gaiman in his writing style, and that's a good thing.  Reading this adventure made me feel like I could see every detail in New Crobuzon without feeling like I'm reading pages of description.  This one has elements of SF and fantasy with magic and strange creatures.  Mieville has a great command of the language and a skill for weaving a story.  Check this one out!  (4/5)

Roger Zelany - Lord of Light

I really enjoyed Zelany's Amber series.  Zelany wrote this book first and has been out of print for some time.  I saw it on the shelf with a pull-quote from Gaiman on the front cover and I couldn't resist.  This is definitely an interesting story based on another world where the original settlers from Earth have set themselves up as the gods of the Hindu pantheon.  We follow our protagonist Mahasamatman (Sam), Binder of Demons, Lord of Light, against those who would deny humanity the technology and science of Earth.  (4/5)

Back from Victorville

Hello all! I'm back from the 2007 Urban Challenge. We had a great time in Victorville and DEXTER had a great showing to become a national semifinalist in the competition. I posted detailed updates to the Team Case blog so in case you missed it, you can read about our experience there. There's a story about Team Case in this week's Observer, there is some video of DEXTER posted to TG Daily's blog, and there's an article in Wired about DEXTER's organ transplant during the national qualifying exam.

Film crews working for the Discovery Channel were also on hand to film our progress in the Urban Challenge. Team Case and DEXTER will be featured in a Discovery Channel special airing in Feb. 2008.

For now, it's time to put my nose to the grind-stone again to finish up my Master's thesis. I'm also starting my career search in earnest, so if you know of any companies looking to hire a fresh graduate with a background in analog microelectronics, sensing systems, and autonomous robotics in the May 2008 timeframe, please point them to my website and resume. Thanks!

1st Day in Victorville

We all made it out with our luggage intact to Victorville on a pleasant flight. The hotel is fine. We also have a super awesome RV that would make Robin Williams envious. We will be working on unloading DEXTER and setting up base camp today. I have the illustrious task of making sure all the computers and sensors on DEXTER and in the "lab" are set up and working. Joy!

We can see the wildfires from our hotel up on the hillside maybe 10 miles away. When we came up through the valley, there was smoke everywhere. There were also maybe 5-10 overturned tractor trailers on the highway from high winds. It's a pretty awesome sight.

The weather is great. 80 degrees, dry, and sunny during the day, and down to maybe 50 degrees at night. I'll post more soon with pictures!

Packed and Ready for Victorville

Well the time is finally here! DEXTER is already in Victorville, CA for the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge and Team Case will be joining him tomorrow. We'll be traveling with a menagerie of computers, sensors, cabling, and electronic gizmos. Plus, what's more fun than getting up at 4 AM?

I will be blogging the event for Case at the official Team Case Blog.

For tonight, I still need to pack my bags and try to get some sleep - but I will check in when I get to California! Wish us luck...

-Bradley

Dexter is on the move!

We ran a demo of Dexter on the Case Quad last week. There are some great photos posted on Flickr. Go check it out!

Another project wrapped up!

I can really feel the end of my stay at Case approaching now. Just yesterday, I got the software I have been writing for the Motion Studies Lab of the Cleveland FES Center to a feature-complete state. I still need to deliver some additional documentation and some final touches, but for the most part it's finished. The software will control Copley Xenus linear actuators to provide stance perturbations to subjects standing on a force plate and being monitored by a VICON motion capture system. Their goal is to create a model of standing perturbation response for use in a closed-loop FES (functional electrical stimulation) or prosthetic standing system. The goal of my software is to make it easy for technicians to run the experiments and collect the resulting data for further analysis.

Getting this project done is great - I am winding down my commitments at Case as we move towards end-game, that is, graduation. It feels good to have done it right and let them move on with their research too! And by the way - I'm glad I wrote it in LabView. It's really the best environment out there for serial communication interfaces and data collection!

Dexter is In!

It's official! DEXTER and Team Case has been selected by DARPA as one of 36 semi-finalists in the 2007 Urban Challenge (PDF). DARPA Director Dr. Tony Tether made the announcement via an online webcast today.

We did some testing with Dexter today at an abandoned parking lot in Highland Heights between thunderstorms today. A Discovery Channel film crew joined us to capture our reaction to the good news.



In other exciting news, Matt LeVan also managed to get Didi stuck in a big ditch / hole at the testing site. Fortunately we extricated her just before a huge downpour!



I also took a few shots of the clouds rolling in. It was actually a beautiful scene before the rain started.